Historically, meat products have been butchered and packaged in each supermarket or other retail outlet. It has long been recognized that this arrangement is extremely inefficient and expensive. Instead, it would be preferable to permit the meat to be butchered and packaged at an efficient facility which benefits from economies of scale and thereafter shipped to individual supermarkets or other retail outlets. Moreover, because of problems with proper disposal of waste, butchering at a central location is preferable.
In the past, this desirable goal has not been achievable because most consumers prefer to buy meat which is red in color as a result of exposure to oxygen. However, the meat maintains its red color for only one to two days. Thereafter, it turns to a purple color which is undesirable to most consumers. Therefore, if the meat were butchered and packaged in one location and then shipped to another location for eventual sale, by the time the package reached the retail outlet the meat would have undergone the transformation to the purple color and would be effectively unsalable.
To overcome these problems, there have been a number of efforts to maintain the food product in a first atmosphere during shipping and a second atmosphere when the meat product is ready for retail sale. It is not believed that any of these techniques have yet achieved significant commercial acceptance. Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide a system that would permit remote meat preparation and subsequent sale after the passage of more than a couple of days.
One problem is that while the need for such a package is great, consumers may not be willing to invest a large amount of money in elaborate packages. Thus, it would be highly desirable to have a package that is convertible between two very different packaging conditions, yet is very economical. Moreover, it is also advantageous for the package to look similar to packages with which consumers are currently accustomed.